


Or Any Other Foolish Question

by whatkindofnameisella



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, episode 103, kind of a missing moments thing, the more we go on jesters story the more i project onto her
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-30
Updated: 2020-07-30
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:14:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25611898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatkindofnameisella/pseuds/whatkindofnameisella
Summary: Waking up is suffocating, so she wades into the water.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 11
Kudos: 89





	Or Any Other Foolish Question

**Author's Note:**

> getting back into the swing of weekly turnaround for fic again, bear with me :)
> 
> title taken from the poem "Roses, Late Summer", by Mary Oliver

Walking up is suffocating. 

Tears are a thick molasses that has trickled through her body over the course of the night – collected at her joints, smeared to the edges of her lungs and stuck in her chest. It is horrible to look at Beau and know she was right. It is even worse to feel her holy symbol at her waist, along with her sketchbook. Like a reminder of her inability to make competent decisions glaring out at the world. So she takes them off and wades into the water.

Normally the ocean is a mild shock to her skin, a cool cloth her mother would press to her forehead on the hottest days of the hottest of Nicodrani summers. But this water is warm, like a silk that starts at her ankles, and she wades deeper, and deeper, and _deeper_ – until her head is covered and she can sink to the bottom and close her eyes and bask in silent blue, until something other than the weight of truth and mistakes and trust misplaced by a small unseen girl is pressing on her from all sides, every directionless atom held in one place. For now.

(and _I have to figure out what I want to land on_ , escaping her mouth and clogged with tears before she can catch it, a mess of indecision bubbling over and she wants to hide, she wants to hide)(but he’s looking at her with blue eyes and gentle hands and _That’s the sticky wicket, isn’t it,_ and it’s too much and not enough and he can’t quite help her and somehow that’s better than the illusion that he can, much better than an idea of what she should do)(and his hands are wringing like he’s trying not to wipe away a tear but he won’t because he’s Caleb, he’s _Caleb_ )

She opens her eyes. Caleb.

He’s rooting around in the silt and coral, books gone somewhere safe and coat back on the sand, graciously ignoring her. Looking at him, the beauty of the cove around her comes into sudden reality – sunlight streaming in golden strands through the waves, schools of fish swimming through bright coral blooming in large colonies along the floor, whelks and oysters nestled into various crannies, mussels and clams and – _clams_ , she realizes, _he’s looking for pearls_ , and she watches him for a moment, the methodical way he picks through the shellfish again and again, limbs too heavy to move. Mouth too stuck to consider speaking.

She should get up look for pearls too.

(he wouldn’t ask her to speak, not if she didn’t want to. he wouldn’t ask her to do a single thing.)

She manages to pry her arms from where they rest clutched around her knees, manages to stretch out one leg, and then another – and then to push off of the shallow floor, to kick her legs and propel herself forward, every movement like something petrified and brittle cracking. She reaches a few feet away from him and then – pauses. She could turn around, crawl back onto the sand, find a shaded spot and stare up at the sky all day. She could kick back to the open ocean, swim down until it’s dark and suffocating and silent, and think. Alone. 

He can’t help her. None of them can. He knows as much. And so – if none of this can be fixed by wading into the water, by leaning down and digging for pearls in the sand, what’s the point? Why is she here?

Ah, too slow. He’s turned his head to the side and caught sight of her.

His eyes widen – what is usually such bright blue seeming grey in the saturated colors of everything around them – and he straightens, slowly, an uncommon content to his movements – the way he absentmindedly fiddles the clam in his hand, the way he holds her gaze softly for just a moment. The way the corners of his mouth turn up in greeting. Just the slightest hint of a smile.

She takes a breath in, water washing away the tears still stuck to her lungs, and out. Not all of them, but just enough. Everything just the slightest bit lighter.

“Hi,” she says, quiet voice further clogged by the water, small bubbles floating above and popping.

“Hi.” He knits his eyebrows together, slightly. Confused. “Are you here to… join?”

She opens her mouth, but finds no response. Is she? It’s much more that she’s on her own and loneliness is crippling, and he wouldn’t mind the silence. Spell components were an afterthought. So was having to wedge her hands into coral and mud to get to them.

She blinks. “I guess so.”

He blinks back. “Okay, well.” And he looks down to the clam still in his hands, scratching the back of his neck, up to her and holds her gaze – 

(amber images, her and Yasha and Beau and Fjord and the Nein, places and people she remembers and doesn’t – her at home, and with her mother, and with the Traveler, and with – Caleb, talking to Caleb, dancing with Caleb, smiling and frowning and whispering at night to Caleb, arms wrapped tight around him and hands holding back, words rushed out and held unsaid in the air between them, all flashing before her and – gone)(and she looks to him and he’s looking at her too and it’s as if their eyes – catch and fumble, dart away before together again. her heart glows in her chest. fiercely.)

“Good luck, ja?”

She nods, tries for a smile, and it’s the worst thing she’s ever done. Unmistakably – _wrong_ , hollow. “Yeah.”

He turns back around, begins his patient work again, checking one shell, and another, and then another. Not urgent, not hungry, but just – content. Like he knows what he’s doing. Like he’s found what it is he wants to land on. For now, at least.

She’s so damned jealous.

He looks at her over his shoulder, quickly turning away again when he meets her gaze. Right – she’s supposed to be pearl-searching. 

She swims down, tries to find… well, she doesn’t really know what she’s looking for, just hovers her hands along the masses of coral, blinks as a minnow darts in front of her eyes and then follows its path through the cove, stares at the coral waving in the spot it left. She’s not really sure how this works. She’s not used to getting her hands dirty for this kind of thing. There’s usually someone else who does that for her. 

( _I… was aware…_ an elegant voice drawing out in reluctance and her stomach drops, fuck, this isn’t – this wasn’t part of the _plan_ )(and first it’s that her friends know him as a fake and now it’s them being correct about his omission and she thought she could take it but he did this for _her_ , they’re here for _her_ , hundreds of ships being charted to a memory-stealing island in the middle of the Lucidian for _her_ , because _she_ made out a fey to be a god, a lonely and cramped up and sheltered little girl with only mischief for a friend, and it’s _too much_ , it’s)

She scrunches up her face, slaps her hands over her eyes and rubs the heels of her palms deep in. She will not think about the previous night, it’s no use to – the only thing that’s worth thinking about is how she’ll somehow turn this shitshow into a glittering performance, never mind if she’ll even have a faith after that. She needs to – she needs to – 

(but _I don’t want to stay_ , and her throat is sore from the tears she’s been trying to keep in, _I don’t want to stay, don’t leave me here, please, I can’t_. because if he would do this knowing her, knowing how scared she is, how horribly new to the world she is, how horribly alone she is, always, then what else would he – if there’s no one else then who – )

“Hey, look.” There’s a tap on her shoulder, and she turns, tiredly, around. 

Caleb is smiling, boyishly, something held between the thumb and forefinger down at his side. The sun is hitting his face, warming his cheeks and rimming his ruddy hair with gold, and he raises his treasure up to their eye line in the space between them. A pearl, jet black, gleaming with matte silver in the sunlight. His smile tells her it’s the most wonderful thing in the world at the moment. 

Her heart blooms.

“I found a black one,” he says, excitedly. Contently. Training his eyes on it as he shifts it this way and that in the light, then sliding them back to her. Contently. And she gets the feeling – this is why she is here, _this_ : the sun in the water, the man smiling without asking for one in return in front of her, letting the broken pieces of her heart float in the same space, some semblance of put together for now. This moment of peace. Of simply – going on, of waking up and facing everything again, no matter the time it takes her.

Something has broken, the last brittle piece of dry molasses cracking in half – something has healed, rather. She’s tired, but waking up. Looking at him grinning with gold in his hair and wiping the sleep out of her eyes.

( _I didn’t do anything_ , a quiet, helpless admission. he didn’t, and it’s okay. gentle hands holding onto her heart nonetheless.)

A smile cracks across her face, and she laughs.


End file.
